The present invention relates to apparatus for manipulating commodities during their transport along predetermined paths, especially for manipulating commodities having a predetermined size and shape. Typical examples of such commodities are stacks consisting of paper sheets or the like which are transported in a machine for the making of exercise books, steno pads and/or analogous stationery products. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be used to change the orientation of selected or successive commodities as well as the direction of travel of reoriented commodities, for example, in order to segregate defective commodities from a series of randomly distributed satisfactory and defective commodities. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can transfer successive or selected commodities of a short or long series of such commodities from a first path which is defined by one or more first conveyors into a second path which is defined by one or more second conveyors and makes a predetermined angle (e.g., a right angle or an ablique angle) with the first path.
Apparatus of the above outlined character are utilized in various branches of numerous industries, such as in bottling, bottle capping, cigarette packing and paper sheet processing plants. For example, it is customary to change the direction of travel of articles which are produced or treated in a first machine during transport of such articles into a second machine wherein the articles are subjected to further treatment. It is also known to utilize suitable apparatus to divert defective commodities from a file or row of randomly distributed satisfactory and defective commodities, e.g., to remove defective paper stacks from a series of satisfactory and unacceptable stacks. This is highly desirable in order to ensure that the defective stacks are not subjected to unnecessary further treatment and/or that they cannot reach the ultimate user.
Certain heretofore known apparatus of the above outlined character employ a platform which is movable up and down and is designed to lift an oncoming defective commodity (such as a paper stack) above the level of the path of acceptable commodities and into the range of a removing conveyor which transports the lifted commodities at a certain angle to the direction of transport of oncoming acceptable and unsatisfactory commodities. A drawback of such apparatus is that they are incapable of removing selected commodities from the path of oncoming commodities at the rate required in modern high-speed machines which can make and/or process hundreds of commodities per minute, e.g., in a modern production line wherein large sheets of paper are converted into stacks of overlapping smaller sheets and such stacks are converted into exercise books or steno pads with spiral or otherwise configurated binders. The utilization of liftable and lowerable platforms is especially unsatisfactory when the commodities form a row of closely adjacent and rapidly advancing components so that the lifting of a selected commodity interferes with forward progress of the next-following commodity or commodities.